The National Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) arrested Anita Kolopaking, the lawyer of graft convict Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra, on Saturday.

National Police spokesperson Brig. Gen. Awi Setiyono said investigators arrested Anita after she was questioned as a suspect on Friday. The interrogation lasted until early Saturday, and the lawyer answered 55 questions from investigators.

“Anita will be detained in Bareskrim’s detention center for the next 20 days,” Awi said on Saturday, as quoted by kompas.com.

Bareskrim previously named Anita a suspect on July 30 and brought multiple charges against her for her alleged role in using forged letters to travel and helping a criminal on the run.

The Supreme Court sentenced Djoko to two years of imprisonment in 2009 for his involvement in the high-profile Bank Bali corruption case. However, the businessman fled to Papua New Guinea a day before the court ruling.

After a decade fleeing, Djoko managed to return to Indonesia undetected, have his new identity documents issued and file for a case review for his two-year prison sentence with the South Jakarta District Court.

The case implicated three high-ranking police generals, who were removed for their alleged role in helping the convict travel within the country.

One of the generals, Brig. Gen. Prasetyo Utomo was named a suspect by the police for allegedly issuing forged travel letters for Djoko and Anita in his capacity as the head of Bareskrim’s Civil Servant Investigator Supervisory and Coordination Bureau.

Asep Subahan, the subdistrict head of South Grogol in West Jakarta, was also dismissed for allegedly issuing an e-ID card for Djoko.

The police eventually arrested Djoko in Malaysia on July 30 and brought him back home.

The Law and Human Rights Ministry announced that Djoko had returned to Salemba detention center in Central Jakarta on Friday. He was previously detained in Bareskrim’s detention center to undergo several questionings.

The ministry’s correctional institution directorate general spokesperson Rika Aprianti said Djoko was undergoing an orientation and 14-day self-isolation in an isolation cell as part of the COVID-19 health protocol for inmates.

“After finishing his orientation and self-isolation, he will be placed in the prison with other convicts,” Rika said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Home Ministry will provide information about the nation’s most-wanted criminals — a list maintained by the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) — on the government’s civil registry to prevent further failures of enforcement and stop exploitation of the system by fugitives.

Home Ministry population and civil registration director general Zudan Arif Fakhrulloh said the ministry had received the most-wanted list from the AGO.

The most-wanted list will be sent to population and civil registration offices throughout the country so that officers receive alerts about the legal status of fugitives if they request civil registration services.

“With the integrated data, the fugitives’ records will spread quickly, and [this will] minimize their room for [escape],” Zudan said in a statement on Thursday.

Zudan said that one of the reasons behind the data integration was the recent clandestine return of graft convict and fugitive Djoko Tjandra to the country.

Djoko, who was convicted in the high-profile Bank Bali graft case, had been on the run for more than a decade since he fled the country in 2009. After entering the country undetected in early June, he managed to obtain a new electronic-ID and file a request for a court review of his conviction without being apprehended.

The e-ID was allegedly issued with the authorization and personal involvement of Asep, former South Grogol subdistrict head. The Jakarta administration has dismissed Asep for abuse of authority and violations of the e-ID card issuance procedure. (dpk)

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